


After the Tale

by Toshi_Nama



Series: Broken [2]
Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types
Genre: Depression, F/M, Gen, Heavy Angst, Inquisitor Hawke, Survivor Guilt, You Have Been Warned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-22
Updated: 2019-06-22
Packaged: 2020-05-16 16:22:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19321777
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Toshi_Nama/pseuds/Toshi_Nama
Summary: The Tale of the Champion was about a lyrium-eyed woman who had helped destroy a Chantry and protect Kirkwall's Circle from a Knight-Commander gone mad.The Tale was about true events, but was a lie.  It was all lies, though these were to protect a woman who, if she did not die, could not live with what she had unleashed.Years later, a Seeker came to Kirkwall to try stop a war, looking for the Champion the mages might trust - the woman who had killed an abomination but refused to let others pay the price.Sometimes, life forces itself on a host all unwilling.  Sometimes, a Champion must try again with whatever splinters remain of the woman behind the stories.*This work is an AU, but I still tied it to her canon worldstate*





	1. Chapter 1

Varric looked at her and shuffled his feet.  She didn’t need to look up, not to hear his coming in, not to know what he was doing, those too-kind hazel eyes looking down at her.  It was easier to sit and stare at the empty fireplace, leaning against the smooth legs of the chair.  She’d long since stopped counting the days, counting  _ anything, _ but surely it was too soon.  He’d come around more often, earlier.

The silence stretched.

Once, she would have tried to smile, greeted him.  Once, she would have eased him into whatever uneasy news he didn’t want to share.  Once, she’d been a person, a Champion.  Then she’d destroyed everything.

In the crystalline cocoon of pain and stillness she’d woven around herself, she could hear him take a breath.  Too deep – the news wasn’t uneasy, it was worse.  “Hawke.”  He waited for the response she couldn’t give.  “Hawke, the Divine’s called a Conclave.  To try bring peace.

_ A jarring crack as  _ he/THEY _ slammed the base of his staff into the stone before the Chantry.  ‘There can be no peace.’  The shimmering blue smoke, the echoes. _

“I spoke with the Seeker.”  The words kept coming, this time.  Sabah was surprised – he’d usually give up after a few words.  “Seeker Cassandra.  Right Hand.  She needs…she needs someone who was here.  Who saved the Circle.”

“I saved nothing.”

The words fell from somewhere, somewhere of bleeding fragments, where the cocoon hadn’t muffled enough.  She took a breath scented with musty grief and bitter hatred.  Wait.  It had been her voice, rusted and as broken as she was.

Varric snapped back.  “You saved more than anyone else could, Hawke!  Because people would  _ listen  _ to you.”  Anger and desperation.  Varric shouldn’t feel that – another person she’d failed.  “Hawke, look.  I told her you’d vanished.  I kept your secrets.  But the Seeker’s right.  The Divine needs  _ someone  _ who knows what actually happened.  As many someones as she can get.”

“Tell her to talk to Cullen.”   _ Not to me, not to what I was, what I’ve become.  I should have stopped him.  I should have realized THEY could never just separate, not here.  But no, I was his tool, THEIR instrument to destroy everything I’d tried to save.  Should I have saved it?  Was it beyond saving?  But so much death.  THEY didn’t care.  The innocents…the refugees…Justice is a lie. _

“She is.  But the mages – he doesn’t think they’ll listen to him.”

_ “Because they won’t.” _  She couldn’t lie, not to Varric, and certainly not to herself.  Not after she’d had that comforting blanket stripped from her the night that glowed brighter than day behind a man whose skin cracked blue-grey with his own fanaticism.  She knew Cullen wouldn’t be trusted by mages who only heard of what...what had happened, but didn’t know what he’d done after.  That other face, those other hazel eyes, hovered for a moment between herself and the dwarf trying to stand next to her rather than over her.  Sabah turned her head into the cushions to hide the tears, hide from the eyes and voice that had never judged her.  He’d tried to help, tried because he’d broken, once, too.  

_ Some things can’t be healed. _

How long ago had it been since he’d tried?  He’d stopped coming at some point, and the front door hadn’t opened since.

He sighed, shattering the ghost of the Knight-Captain and reluctant Knight-Commander she’d hidden from.  “I’ve already promised her I’ll go.  There are Templars that will respect what I did, how I stood against the Knight-Commander who broke her vows in madness.  But to mages in the other Circles, I’m still the Knight-Captain who followed her orders for far too long.”  He wasn’t a ghost.  The face...wasn’t a memory, yet those eyes...she couldn’t face them.  Couldn’t face  _ him.   _ For the briefest instant something reflected fury and she hated Varric for having brought him.  Then it faded back into the shattered, blood-drowned wreckage of who she’d tried to be.

Some things didn’t heal.  When the door stayed closed, she’d stopped pretending she could.

She knew he was right.  The mages who only knew Varric’s lies or Anders’...who only knew destruction...they wouldn’t believe the man who’d tried to save the ones who could be.  They wouldn’t believe he’d  _ tried.   _ He hadn’t always succeeded.  She remembered his nightmares.  Did he remember hers?

A callused fingertip under her chin – easier to let it move her face, and harder, because she’d have to face him now that she knew he was real.  She opened dull, dark eyes – sapphire,  _ he/THEY  _ had called them once, sparkling in the sunlight.  There was no sunlight any longer.  His lip had healed – the scars never went away.  Thinner,  _ much  _ thinner, and new lines of strain framed his mouth.  His voice stayed quiet, and steady.  If she focused on him kneeling next to the heap of her, she didn’t have to acknowledge the other pair of hazel eyes blurred in the background.  She couldn’t face them both.  “You won’t have to fight, Sabah.  That’s my job, if…if.”  If everything failed.  His hand shook.  “The Divine needs to hear everything you can tell her.”

Fear and relief spiked through her.  That’s when she knew she would go, would leave the safety of her tomb, the darkness and soft sorrow that kept the ragged shards from moving and slicing further.  Even if he was wrong, he didn’t lie.  If…if.  If  _ if  _ became reality, there would be blood aplenty.  She would fight, or finally find peace.  “I need…she’ll expect the Champion, won’t she, Cullen?”

A sigh as she said his name.  “The Seeker does.  The Divine?  I don’t know.”

“I can’t…”

“I will.”  He used the arm of the chair, levered himself up.  He  _ did  _ remember the figure that stalked her dreams, his voice shifting from his to  _ Theirs.  Coward.   _ Now she could accept the truth of it.

She looked at Varric, then turned her head from his grief.

“Either way, you won’t have to until you see her.”

She nodded, her face moving against the damp brocade.

“Hawke…”

She shook her head.  “Don’t.”  One word, almost silent but shrieking with pain.  “Please.”

He cleared his throat.   _ Oh, Varric.   _ She could remember that from when he talked about Bartrand, after.  “I’ll book passage, then.  Tell the Seeker we’ll meet her in Haven, let her do her scary Seeker things.”  The dwarf hurried to answer the questions she should have asked.  “She wanted me, too.  I wrote the book, after all.  Wanted me in her ‘personal custody,’ but I’m sure Curly will count.”

Once his reluctant steps padded back out, she opened her eyes to the long-cold fire and ran a shaking hand through ragged black hair.   _ Black for mourning, black for sorrow, black for death.   _ If she could find the strength to stand on her own, she could belt on her daggers.  If she had the courage to wear those after so long, she could open the door.

If she had the determination to open the door, she could face down the horror of the fires she had helped start.

With a deep breath, she put both delicate, skeletal hands on the cushion of the chair, gathered her legs and the pieces of her soul she could still find, and pushed.

**

She had no idea how he could look at what she’d fallen to and not show it in his face.  When he saw her standing on trembling legs, he just nodded. “You haven’t had...I’ll draw a bath, then find something for us to eat.”

There was no value in saying the house was empty.  He set neat packs next to her daggers against the wall, and she heard water pumping, the creak of the rusted spigot jarring in the shrouded hall as it alternated with the fitful splashes.

How long since she’d looked at the daggers?  Her feet drifted closer, eyes on the cracked leather sheaths.  How long had she been in this empty house, drapes pulled, as the dust and cobwebs coated the once-bright rooms?  She had hovered in this endless twilight, between day and night, life and the abyss, since the last time Cullen had walked out the door.

It lept out of the sheath despite the...the time of neglect and disregard, its enchantments keeping it sharp as it had been when she’d last used it to try stop the chaos she’d enabled.  It still filled her right hand, nestled perfect and trusting. The bright edge - she turned her gaze from it for a moment, running a finger along the starstruck metal. She didn’t even feel it cut her flesh, not until she noticed the line of blood dark against her too-pale skin.  If she dug back to the pain of what she had been, she could remember it cutting through muscle and bone as easily.  Effortless death.

As if dazed, she brought it up against her neck, beneath the lank tresses that curtained her face, heedless of the arrested movement behind her, the tall man with hazel eyes frozen at the sight of the blade against her throat.  She slashed...and the knotted tangles began to drop to the floor, lost amidst the shadows and dust.

Sabah turned to face him, attention captured by his breath returning.  Her head moved easier, freed of the heavy concealment, the ragged ends brushing her cheeks.

“The water’s cold, but I found towels and soap.”

The weight of what would not be said hung between them until she nodded.  She flinched from the sudden flare of gold as he opened the front door, yanking it through the collected dust until he could fit, then pulling it gently closed.

**

Alone again, she stripped and scrubbed at the grime embedded in her skin, scrubbed until the parchment pale tissue was red and worn.  She soaped again and again, and palm-length tangles filled the cloudy water. Even in what had been the kitchen, she could feel the spike of light as the door opened and the relief when it closed again.

Varric hadn’t used the front door since she’d barred it.

He’d found a robe - it belted close, soft against her skin.  Back to the other room, where he’d started clearing a table. Two bowls steamed in the corner next to a dark round of bread.  She watched, unmoving, as a spark of curiosity flickered to life.

“Maps.”  He kept his eyes on his own trembling hands.  “Maps, with dates and events. What’s happened over the past three years, the news I received as Knight-Commander.”  She could remember his body against hers, uncontrolled tremors shaking him as it screamed for the Templars’ drug. His duties had called him back, once.

The words sunk in.   _ Three years.   _ The endless torment and fragile balance had a duration, now.  “So long.” And yet, not long enough. When he held out a bowl, she took it.  A gentle broth - something easy enough to drink while its weight held it steady in her hands.

Cullen stayed focused, pointing as he spoke.  “You may remember - during the Blight, Ferelden’s Circle fell.  The Warden-Commander rescued the remainder, but the Crown granted it freedom from the Chantry’s oversight in thanks for her actions.  The first breach - freedom, but at a price. Starkhaven’s Circle burned the next year, in Dragon 31. In 37 the Kirkwall Circle fell.”  He ignored her tears. She ignored his shudder. “The next year, Grand Enchanter Fiona and the College of Enchanters reject the idea to dissolve the Circles wholesale.  The Chantry responded by dissolving the College of Enchanters and banning meetings. To ‘keep order.’ Last year, White Spire rebelled and Lord Seeker Lambert cancelled the Nevarran Accord.  From what I’ve pieced together, White Spire was more...extreme than Kirkwall.

“Then everything began to fall apart.  The Circle in Dairsmuid was annulled - for no apparent reason other than the mages were treated as people.  I have found no signs of rebellion, revolt or violence. But by this point, the Accord is broken. The mages have declared their independence from the Chantry and the Circles are no more.”  She watched his fingers walk from city to city across southern Thedas. “It is chaos.”

So much blood, so much death.  She struggled to turn away, but his eyes stopped her.  

He reached for his own cup, took a deliberate sip.  “Sabah - Kirkwall was the third Circle to fall, and one of five as the Accords were shattered.  By the Seekers and Templars, not the mages.”

She tore her eyes from his, watched the ripples spread in her own cup as her hands shook.  One of five. Not the first, not the last. “You say this was just one more horrible event?”  Bitterness dripped despite her soft tone.

“I say that it was  _ an  _ event.  Here in the Free Marches, we are too far to know how the pieces fit.”

A warm hand under her own, easing the cup closer to her lips.  She drank. and drank in everything he said - and everything he didn’t.  He never said that Kirwall’s fall  _ wasn’t  _ responsible for the collapse of the Accords - but he never said it  _ was.  His/THEIR dying sigh, as though Vengeance was released.  Madness and chaos, Meredith demanding the annulment of the Circle for the actions of a mage who had never been part of it.  Orsino’s descent - or return - to blood-magic, the creation of a monster. People innocent of anything but living in the City of Chains maimed and dead, strewn across the streets and alleys.   _

Cullen managed to catch the cup as it fell from nerveless fingers.  The words couldn’t change her heart, not when she had destroyed it that night - but they sank into the whirlwind of blood-soaked waves and cracked pieces that she still called her soul.  His lips brushed her damp hair as he pulled her against him.  Three years since she’d felt another’s touch.

She stiffened as she heard other footsteps, heavy with uneasy reluctance.

When Varric came into the library, she was curled in a chair and pulling a comb through what was left of her hair, the cup of soup in front of her.

He looked at the two of them.  Sabah could see his mental shrug, even after…three years.  No.  He’d come more often than that.  “I booked passage.  Only two berths, though.  She’s a bit too curious, and has been watching me like a…”  he coughed.  “Like a Seeker.  Damned Seekers, don’t take no for answers.”

Cullen raised an eyebrow.  “We’ll manage, dwarf.  Worst case, you didn’t know your ‘friend’ had friends of his own.  We can sleep in shifts.”  Based on the shadows under his eyes, he didn’t sleep much more than she.

Varric shifted again, then shrugged.  “Well, we shove off, or whatever it is, with morning tide.  Something before dawn, anyway.”

**

They came back some time later.  She was ready, dressed in the smallest clothes she had, loose cotton pants belted tight – she’d had to add three more notches just so it would fasten and stay.  It was colder in Ferelden.  That and the night chill was enough to justify the cloak and deep hood.  This time, all three used the basement entrance out to Darktown.  Pain fought against habit: pain won, and she didn’t look where the lantern used to burn blue before healing was lost to  _ Their  _ rage.

It should look different.  Broken, or healed.  Inside something shrieked at the unfairness, that Darktown continued living when she had not.  Furtive movements, beggars and ragged children, putrid steam rising up…only the faces were different.  Curious, assessing eyes turned away after measuring Bianca across Varric’s back, the well-used shield on Cullen’s back matched by the worn grip on his sword.  At this hour, the day’s desperation hadn’t set in.

It was easier to not look up, to watch her feet one before the other keeping pace with the larger boots next to her, her hand on his arm as it had never been on  _ his/THEIRS, they  _ had never bothered with such things.  She winced away from even the faint lightening around them as they stepped out of Darktown, moving toward the docks, and burrowed deeper into her hood.  Darkness was safer.  In the darkness, she couldn’t see her memories, couldn’t be seen by them.

“Hey!  You only booked for two!”

She felt the muscles of his forearm tense as her fingers tightened – not danger, but the volume, the sudden words, startled her.  She longed for the draped shadows of the estate, musty and unchanging, but they were far behind her now.  She pressed against the warmth of his side as his voice joined Varric’s, authority mixed with irritation to balance out her once-companion’s jovial wheedling.

The unknown voice caught her attention again, as she got a whiff of stale breath.  “Your girl’s not one of  _ them, _ is she?  I won’t be having  _ them  _ on this boat, not after what happened to the Chantry.”

She could feel the ice and shaking rising from her core.   _ The burst of light, searing in the darkness…and then the sound, the stones, rising and falling all around, the scream of a city broken past bearing… _

“Do you really accuse me of that, Captain?”  The searing contempt in Cullen’s…no, the Knight-Commander’s voice, took her by surprise.  The Captain as well, as he dropped hasty apologies.  When Cullen moved forward, she went with.  Easier to keep the hood down, to hide from searching, embarrassed, enraged eyes, especially with the burning light warning of false dawn.  

“Please.”  A breath of a whisper, but enough.  Cullen opened a door, and dismissed the sailor who had brought them this far.  A small window – he covered it as she lifted her too-thin hands to pull down her hood and see where he and Varric had brought her.

She stood inside a chest.  Water-warped wood pressed close all around.  If she stretched her arms, she could touch both sides.  A hammock against the back wall, a narrow nook beneath for bags or a chest, tiny window causing the fabric hung before it to breathe with the faint gusts and movement of the ship.

The ship breathed around her, a living beast of moans and creaks roiling on the waves.  The memories of her last voyage, the scent of fear and desperation as her mother refused to watch, as Carver’s jaw tightened further each day rose against her will.  She let them.  They were easier than memories of other waves, aquamarine in the candlelight, waves that had surrounded her, drowned her.


	2. To Stop a War

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Who would recognize the Champion of Kirkwall in the ruin of what Sabah had become?
> 
> None but those who had watched her fall.

She would laugh bitterly, if she could only remember how, as the ship rewound her panicked flight from Carver’s grave to her mother’s – and her own.  A shouted exchange pushed through the door.  Varric bribed the captain to calmness, and no one spoke of the apparition who paced the decks in the moonlight.  No one spoke to her as her feet traced a ward against what sleep would bring.  Despite the crowded ship, she had her cocoon of guardian steel and uneasy haunted silence.

The ghosts of her last journey walked beside her, filled her nostrils with desperation, filth and hunger.  The ghosts of war, of marching feet and bristling arms.  Of refugees with nowhere to run.  Leandra had sat next to the stern as often as she could, watching the place she’d eventually come to think of as home fade behind her, until they’d rounded past Denerim.  Then, her eyes were only for Kirkwall, the home she’d abandoned for love of a mage.  Bethany rarely came up, using whispers and her water ration to ease those below, where the pain and gratitude concealed the faint glow of her powers.

Gwaren was different, she could sense it even as she refused to look.  She didn’t need to see Cullen’s set face to know the gestures the sailors made at her retreating form – signs against misfortune, against death.  She wished them the luck she’d never found and wrapped her bloody self tight in the hopes it wouldn’t corrupt another place.  They would beg a Revered Mother to bless the ship, cleanse it from the curse of her presence.   _ Her  _ presence, even though there was sometimes another set of feet matching her strides under fitful moonlight, a tall shadow also trying to outrun his bloody nightmares.  

**

The lush forests thickened then faded around them as she rode a hack purchased in Gwaren.  Varric refused to ride anything other than a mule, while Cullen had his horse brought from Kirkwall, a rangy, spotted roan.  An acrid scent flavored the air – she tensed with Varric.

“What is that?”

Varric answered.  “That, Curly, is the Blight.”

It stank the same, above or below the surface.  Here and there a body lay untouched and defiled, only the dried powder of their blood showing the passage of a decade.

Cullen whispered.  He was pale, she was sure of it, even without turning her eyes from where her hands rested against the mare’s grey mane.  “Maker have mercy.”

“The Chantry teaches the Maker cursed the Magisters with the Taint.  This is His doing if they’re right.”

There were no birds to fill the cruel silence had startled the others into.  It had been enough days trapped against those who hadn’t stopped living, and she now feared the path they travelled.  The Blight had spread less along the road, but there was only one road from Gwaren toward Haven…and she knew what lay along it.  Irony, that it was darkness when they reached the crossroads.  Fate, that the burbling, sweet brook she remembered was sluggish, choked with charred debris and corpses, bones worn smooth where the water had been able to flow.

This time, this stop, she pulled back her hood, ragged curls dried against her skin.   _ There,  _ a few beams leaned against each other where the Templars had watched for magic and never noticed it slipping past them to pray, Bethany’s innocence protecting her.   _ Here,  _ Carver had bloodied the journeyman who mocked them for their poverty, for being from somewhere else.  Beyond  _ that  _ rise was their cottage and the simple stone marker for Father’s ashes.  Surely, the Darkspawn couldn’t defile the rock and ash?  She didn’t speak, and they didn’t ask, even as she looked into the line of ragged hills to the west, as her gaze fell south.  Somewhere, there was another Blighted cairn fallen in on ashes and a sword taller than she, a cairn with the remnants of an Ogre’s skull at its feet.

Her first failure, since even she hadn’t blamed herself for Father’s death.  Carver, always overshadowed.  Her brother so desperate to protect his family, he’d given everything before she could shout, before she could help.

This time, even Varric couldn’t sleep.  It was only a few hours before he sighed and Cullen stood to saddle the horses again.  Her strength hadn’t returned – she couldn’t lift the saddle high enough.   _ Helpless as I always was.  What did I save?  And now, I go to try convince desperate mages to trust a Templar known for cowing them.  Even if he is not that, not any longer. _

One last thirsty day, and they made it past the Blighted lands.  There was sprightly water again, even a few desperate blades of grass quickly shorn by their mounts.

**

Sabah stared up at the sky, watching the second moonset fading into the soft colors of dawn.  Two days ago, she’d put down her hood.  Varric shut his mouth at a glance from Cullen.  The two had talked along the journey, the quiet ebb and flow of words in front or behind, but nothing to do with her.  She remembered second moonset, full and ripe, falling into the faint light as they left the harbor.

She was caught in time’s clutches again, after drifting free for an endless space.  Luck and their Blighted path, that they’d seen so little of the war that raged across the South.  A month they’d spent travelling.

“We need supplies?”  

Cullen met her eyes as she questioned the empty air.  “We do.  Redcliffe is our best chance.  From what we were told in Gwaren, the Queen gave shelter to the mages of Kinloch there, in honor of the Hero’s sacrifices.”

“The Hero – her Arling is Amaranthine, isn’t it?  That’s the north end of Ferelden.”

Cullen nodded.  “And she offered shelter as far from the Hero as she could.  Warden-Commander Amell had asked, and been given, a Circle free of Chantry oversight as a boon for stopping the Blight.”  His voice was dry with the emotion he’d stripped out of it, crackling from effort.

Here, then.

Cullen needed her to convince the mages he could be listened to.  Then they could talk and decide if she was needed in Haven.  She wasn’t ready, but did that matter?  She never would be.

A month had past since she’d left the tomb of the estate.  Even with the wreckage of Ferelden beating around her…she wasn’t sure she wanted to go back.  Wasn’t sure she could.  That flicker hadn’t died even if it hadn’t grown, stubbornly insisting she was still alive.  And, damn the web of obligation and remembered feelings, she still couldn’t turn away, not if she could help.   _ Maker, show mercy on Cullen, if not me.  He has tried to follow you faithfully.  He does not deserve what I will do. _

Her only success had been to guarantee catastrophic failure later.

**

Sabah’s eyes no longer wept at sunlight by the time they rode through Redcliffe’s gate.  “More refugees?  There is not much room, unless…”

The guard’s gaze was uneasy as he looked at the trio.  Sabah managed a caricature of her old sideways grin.  “I’m here to speak with the First Enchanter.”  Surely, one was here.

**

“Grand Enchanter, visitors.”  The tavern had become a sort of receiving room, or at least this secluded corner.  This was no simple refugee – then the title sank in.   _ Grand  _ Enchanter.  Cullen’s eyes met her, and he gave a faint nod.

The elven woman was older, worn and determined.  Her soft Orlesian accent was surprising, if Sabah cared enough to surprise.  “You wished to speak with me?”

Sabah nodded.  “I come to vouch for this man.  He is a Templar no longer, and wishes to help find peace.”

Sharp, dark eyes looked at all three of them.  “Excuse me?”

“Peace, Grand Enchanter.  That is what you want?”  Her voice ached at so many words, and turned sharp.  “There has been enough blood, enough death.”   _ Too much.  Will I ever know how much I helped cause?  Could I survive if I did?   _ She’d become resigned to survival, to the fact somewhere along the journey, her need for oblivion had been subsumed as she had hunted for the woman she had been.  She had to put Varric’s Champion together long enough to pay her debt to Cullen.  He had saved her sister.  She would do this.  Somehow.

“Of course I want peace, but until the Templars are cowed there is none.  The Conclave…may settle things.”  The Grand Enchanter narrowed her eyes as she held Sabah’s.  “Who are you, if you please?”

The Grand Enchanter had no hope it would.  “Sabah.”  Surely, that name was known.

“Sabah?”

“Sabah Hawke, Champion of Kirkwall.”

A snort came from behind the travelers, and even the Grand Enchanter chuckled softly.  “I am afraid that will not carry weight here.  I have actually read the Tale of the Champion, not just heard of it.  I know enough to see not every blue-eyed Ferelden woman is the Champion, any more than every tall, blonde man is the infamous Knight-Captain who took down Meredith Stannard.  Though I congratulate you on originality, it is not needed for refuge here.”

Now what?  

For the first time, it looked like Varric regretted his narrative excess.

“Grand Enchanter…”

“No.  Enough.  You have refuge here, or you may go on your way.  But I must acknowledge and treat with reality, not a mythical heroine.”

**

Varric was the one who spoke.  “Look, we can always try…”

“No.”  Her quiet voice surprised her.  She listened to it as much as the two men, curious to see what it would say this time.  “She doesn’t believe and won’t.  Supplies, and we go on.”  On to Haven.  Another failure.  That woman was determined not to believe - the failure wasn’t hers this time.  Sabah listened to the words and found herself agreeing with the surprising remnant of who she had been even as Cullen nodded.

Varric looked back and forth.  “I’m just with you two because it’s better than the Seeker.”

She didn’t even look at him.   _ Liar.   _ But this time, the thought was almost fond.  Varric was a liar, and always had been – but had also been a friend.  He just…lied to do it.  “Made stories,” as he said.

Cullen gave a loud sigh.  “We needed to go to Haven anyway.  I had hoped to bring a victory with us.”

“How much further?”

He chewed his lip and looked – not at their horses, but at Varric’s mount.  “Two weeks, perhaps three.  And it will get colder as Haven is in the mountains.”  He shivered.  “It’s been too long since I was in the South for any length of time.”

Their eyes met.  She knew the last time – before Kirkwall.  When he was dealing with the first of his demons, when  _ she _ was running from the Darkspawn.  But there had been more, in the years before Malcom died.  Bethany had gained control of her magic, the family had been in Lothering longer than she’d remembered being  _ anywhere.   _ Lothering was gone, now.  So was Malcom, and Leandra…Carver.  Even Bethany, though she’d not had the courage to ask whether her sister was also dead.  Better for her to be long gone and not look back.  She shivered at her memories, matched by his shudder.  Too many mages, too much magic here.  The scent of lyrium, he said once, was unmistakable to a Templar.

Somehow, Sabah reached out her hand to touch his shoulder.  He pushed back the memories and the cravings – she watched him do it.  “Come on.”  His voice was rougher.

**

They were almost out of food by the time they saw smoke further up.  Everything was always further up since they left Redcliffe.  It was cold.  Miserably cold.  She’d never spent time in the mountains, and now understood why their parents had always avoided them – especially for Mother, who had trouble even with Lothering’s winters.  People were dancing, for some reason.  Celebrating – no, it wasn’t a holiday, was it?  She’d never known the Chantry holidays that well.  She couldn’t understand.  “Why would everyone be so happy?”

Varric snorted, but Cullen answered.  “The Divine is here, up at the Temple of Sacred Ashes.”  He pointed to the banners.  “Mages and Templars have arrived, and fighting hasn’t broken out.”

“Yet.”  Of course Varric would say what she was thinking.  

Yet.

The happiness still didn’t make sense, but then her eyes landed on a procession and a woman almost dwarfed by the hat and robes she wore.  Worn with age, she still moved with grace.  People stepped back with bows or reached out to touch her fingers.

“Cullen?”

He nodded.  “That is…”

“Divine Justinia, Most Holy.”  The accented voice was almost emotionless behind them.  “I had expected to see you on the boat.”

Varric went for sarcasm.  “There weren’t any boats, Seeker.  Ships, though…”

“Enough, dwarf.  Who is your companion?”

Cullen stiffened.  So did Varric.  But she was done hiding – what had hiding gotten?  She hadn’t even lived, just…persisted.

“Sabah Hawke.”  She turned to face the tall woman, sword at her side.  “Once Champion of Kirkwall, but…I don’t use that title any longer.”  She hadn’t, not since…since she’d helped destroy everything.  Sabah even managed to drag her cracked sapphire eyes up to meet the woman’s grey-brown, wide with shock.

_ “You  _ are the Champion of Kirkwall?”

Sabah pulled down her cloak as the wind caught its edge, offering a tantalizing glimpse of the armor Cullen insisted she wear since reaching Ferelden.  “No more.”  She managed another shattered half-smile.  “Varric took liberties with his Tale.  He does that.”  She ignored his mock protests.

The woman’s voice rose.  “You  _ lied?!”   _ Faces turned their way and were driven of by Cullen’s glare.  Once, it had been Fenris who had ensured privacy for arguments between...Fenris was...gone.  He hadn’t died, too, had he?  No, not Fenris.  The argument continued, disdainful of her musings.

Varric glared up at her.  “Of  _ course  _ I lied!  What did you expect, Seeker?  Kirkwall did its damnedest to destroy her, and now you want a chance at what’s left!”

“Varric.”

The dwarf didn’t even notice.  “But no, she had to come anyway, because you asked.  Because she’ll keep walking into the fire…or in this case, ice, and will keep…”

Cullen tried this time.   _ “Varric.”   _ He shut up.  “Right Hand, here is not the time or place.”  The former Templar kept his voice low.  “We’re here.  You’ve brought us to Haven.  The Divine should speak with Sabah first.  We already tried talking to the mages and failed.  I don’t know if we can accomplish what she seeks.”

Sabah appreciated the ‘we,’ even if it was really ‘she.’   _ She  _ was the one Cassandra sought out to gain the ear of the mages, and she’d failed.   _ She  _ was the one who needed to be the savior she’d never been, all thanks to Varric and his attempt to protect her, hide her.  “Please.”  Her voice was worn, and she shivered.  “I came, but if I can’t help, I don’t want to make things worse.  I’ll speak to the Divine, and she can decide.”


	3. Chained to the present, unmoored from the past

_ Pain.   _ It breathed her in and out, rubbing raw against the bloody fragments she’d tried to cobble together.  But she had...she had…

Sabah opened her eyes to a red-shadowed room with a bookcase, small desk, and the bed she was on.  She coughed back a moan when new pain shot through her body and the room flared green.  Heavy boots hit stone past the bars.  She closed her eyes, luxuriating in the fleeting ability to ignore whatever horror had happened now.  One more breath, and she knew whose bed she lay in.  Burnt ozone sweat and sandalwood.  She’d thought he and Cassandra were on good terms...that’s right.  Haven was teeming with people.  This had been the only space, he’d said, and it was within the Chantry.

She hadn’t remembered the bars when she’d seen it before.

“What have you done!  You said you wanted  _ peace,  _ but brought this upon us?  How?”

The Right Hand tore the steel lattice open, another three guards standing in her wake.  Sabah ignored their swords then choked another breath of living pain as green flickered around her left hand again.  She clenched pale fingers around it.  “What do you mean?”  She remembered arriving...Varric had a room at the inn...the Chantry...the steps further  _ up  _ to ancient stone and new…

Cassandra pulled her up by her collar, shaking her limp form.  “You  _ must  _ know!  Was one Chantry, one Grand Cleric not enough?”

_ “Cassandra!”   _ The room’s proper inhabitant pushed past the guards and grabbed a wrist.  “Enough.  I have told you again and again, she was not responsible for Grand Cleric Elthina’s death!”  He was mere inches taller than the Right Hand, wrapped in a warm cloak and partial armor.  “I am certain she was not at fault.”

When she was dropped back to the bed, she coughed, forcing air in and out.  “What happened?”   _ Was one Chantry not enough...no...NO…   _ Sabah shook her head involuntarily.  Terrified, she met Cullen’s grief-stricken eyes.  “The Divine…”

His closed, shutting her out.  She knew that face.  “Gone,” he said shortly.  “Cassandra and I were here, as the Left Hand was due to arrive.  Everything past Haven is simply gone.  The Divine.  The Temple.  You were the only survivor.”

Breath stopped.  She didn’t remember,  _ couldn’t  _ remember.  What did that  _ mean?   _ She  _ had  _ been part of Anders’ plot, if deliberately blind to the truth...no.  What if  _ it  _ hadn’t died with Anders, what if only her refusal for so long to live had kept  _ it  _ from extracting more blood from the Chantry  _ it  _ and Anders had blamed for everything?  The spectre of the spirit she’d wanted to believe at fault for Anders’ cruelty lurked in the shadows of her mind.   _ No, Maker no… _ but it had transferred bodies before, and  _ she  _ had been the closest...she had held the knife, had held him _ /THEM  _ as the life drained out…  “I...don’t remember anything.”  Please.   _ Please,  _ Maker, strike her down now before she had to face the truth, before she had to see…

The Maker had never listened to her pleas.

“Come with me.  Perhaps you will remember if you see it yourself.”

**

Shock pinned her when the light struck.  It wasn’t the diffusely bright sunlight of a mountain’s winter, but a sickly  _ green  _ bruise dominated the sky above.  It flared, and her hand crackled.  Her knees screamed their own agony when they hit the stone-and-dirt ground, but it was nothing to what speared her blood.  Cullen’s feet caught up almost as quickly as Cassandra’s glare held him back.  “The Breach.  Your explosion tore a hole in the sky.  The mark it left - it is killing you.”

_ Please.   _ It couldn’t come fast enough, and yet…  “How many?”

“Thousands.  More will fall if we cannot close that tear between our world and the Fade.  It grows larger each day.”

No choice.  She still had no choices.  Sabah closed her eyes.  She should have never come, never attempted to live again, not been swayed by their needs in Kirkwall or her desire to do something to make things right.  “What must I do?”

The rope around her wrists was cut.  “Mend the sky.  There are those who say you are Andraste’s Herald.”  Cassandra pushed her stumbling feet to move toward the path up.  “There are others who blame you for the death of our Most Holy.  If you can mend the Breach and bring peace between the mages and Templars, then it will not matter.  You will have done what Divine Justinia was willing to give her life for.”

Cullen caught her as she stumbled.  His dark faith hurt; he  _ should  _ judge her, should blame her for what happened, even if he never had.  Cassandra was enough ahead that the angry mutters and shouts of the crowd hid her words from any but the man shadowing her.  “What if…” she had to ask.  Surely he of all people would know.  It was  _ cruel,  _ but if it was true  _ someone  _ needed to stop her.  Cullen’s head shifted just enough to know he was listening.  “Do you know Justice died at the Chantry?  Are you  _ sure?   _ Could it…”

His lips tightened.  “I have felt no trace of demon on you.  I don’t think my senses would miss…”

It wasn’t quite a no, but served to help bury the terror a little lower.  She drug the shattered remnants of herself into a child’s drawing, enough to keep tripping forward.  

The hope that sprang to life when she saw Varric guttered and died when the elf used the magic seared into her hand to close one of the rifts.

Whatever had happened,  _ she had been there.   _


End file.
